Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW: ACADEMIC STRESS OF COLLEGE

Literature Review: Academic Stress and its Effects on Achievements

Nate Perry

San Juan College

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Academic Stress and Its Effects on Achievements

Introduction

The considerable academic stress levels of college students has become of major field of

testing and study over the recent years. Academic stress is the pressure a student perceives they

are under to do well within schooling (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017, David Robotham, 2008).

Students that suffer from large amounts of academic stress are more likely to suffer from mental

health issues such as, fear, anxiety, guilt, and depression (David Robotham, 2008). These

students are also much more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol than less academically stressed

students (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017).

Stressors

The stressors which cause students to develop academic stress have wide variation and

almost all were tested for in questionnaires (Pozos, Preciado, Acosta, Aguilera, Delgado, 2014).

Stressors that were found and evaluated for consisted of , the transition into university, country

differences, tests, jobs, in class, academic overload, overcrowding in classrooms, lack of time,

money, tasks and studying, group work, and overall competition with fellow students

(Robotham, 2008, Pozos, Preciado, Acosta, Aguilera, Delgado, 2014). These stressors have a

sort of classification based on their level of impact on the students. The list goes from most

stressful to least, stressor related to studying, stressors related to examinations, stressors related

to the transfer into university, and stressors related to financial issues. Other stressors that were

asked only in one questionnaire include the stresses of being an only child, age, and gender

(Hall, Chipperfield, Perry, Ruthig, Goetz, 2006).

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Questionnaires

The ability to test academic stress levels is most generally a self-evaluated questionnaire;

the different questionnaires offer different findings. Different types of questionnaires offer

different levels of information, there are questionnaires that dig deep into a student’s background

into their childhood, there are ones that focus solely on the students’ current position in the

university,etc (Hall, Chipperfield, Perry, Ruthig, Goetz, 2006; Misra, McKean, 2000; Banu, Deb,

Vardhan, Rao, 2015). One particular questionnaire dove into the childhood of the college

students and the individual variables that may affect their stress currently (Banu, Deb, Vardhan,

Rao, 2015). In this questionnaire of their age group, it separates whether they fall within a group

of twenty-one to twenty-two, twenty-three to twenty-four, or twenty-five to twenty-six. Those

who fell under the twenty-one to twenty-two category were found to make up 61.9% of the

group of 699 students and were found to fall into the category of 44% that had a stress level of

good. The questionnaire also assessed whether or not the students tested had siblings or not and

found that 9.7% had no siblings and 90.3% had at least one sibling. The questionnaire looked

into other variables such as, family income, perceived family environment, and fathers’

occupation, the relationship of the students with their parents and their friends, and lastly their

mothers’ education level (Banu, Deb, Vardhan, Rao, 2015). Other questionnaires focused more

closely on the academic life of the students rather than their backgrounds, one questionnaire asks

the previous semesters GPA as well as their field of study, humanities, science, or management.

Other questionnaires consist of gender, language, GPA currently, and the year the students are

currently, freshman, sophomore etc (Banu, Deb, Vardhan, Rao, 2015, Bernstien, Chemaly,

2017). There are also questionnaires that ask for more of a scale, such as two particular
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questionnaires which asked questions like “During a test” and ask the students on a scale of one

to five, five being the most stress (Pozos, Preciado, Acosta, Aguilera, Delgado, 2014). These

questionnaires are all self evaluated which can lead to skewed results such as men masking their

stress due to their masculinity (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017).

Results and Findings

The findings from all of the questionnaires over the stressors that determine the students

stress levels were on multiple different levels. Some questionnaires gave the results that one

gender was more stressed than the other. Results saying men were more stressed than women

was found less frequently and was usually tied to very simple questionnaires (Kar, 2013).

Women usually had higher mean scores of stress than men, signifying a higher academic stress

level is more commonly found in women (Banu, Deb, Vardhan, Rao, 2015). These results were

justified by the finding that women take their education more seriously than men (Kar, 2013,

Banu, Deb, Vardhan, Rao, 2015, Hall et al, 2006). Other results included that students who were

the only child of their family were more academically stressed than those who had at least one

sibling. Younger students were more stressed than older students showing a U-value of 5.15 in

students twenty-four years of age or younger, and students twenty-five or older showed a U-

value of 4.63 (Banu, Deb, Vardhan, Rao, 2015, Hall et al, 2006).

Negative Effects

Academic stress has a wide variety of negative effects on the students’ minds and bodies.

Stress is a students’ perception that they do not have the ability to cope with a situation they find

themselves in that is from the past, present, or future. Stress is also individual perception so a

situation that one student may find exceptionally stressful another may not find stressful at all
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(Robotham, 2008). Negative effects from an individual stress can lead to increasing mental

health issues including, fear, anxiety, guilt, and depression, which can lead to suicidal

tendencies. There is also evidence that stress effects students physically and shows that stress can

affect eating habits which leads to weight gain or loss at an unhealthy rate. Also students can

experience, lack of exercise, lack of sleep, and an increase in drug and alcohol abuse leading to

the individual health risks of those (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017, Robotham, 2008). The increase in

academic stress and negative effects can lead to a drastic drop in academic performance

(Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017).

Positive Effects

Academic stress has few documented positive effects on students that struggle with the

stress. These positive effects include an increased ability to assess and respond effectively during

emergency situations. Another positive effect of academic stress of students is that they will have

a first-hand experience with the stress that they may run into in their daily lives after university

(Robotham, Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017).

Treatments

The treatments for academic stress are varied and there are some different ways and

teachings students can learn to control their academic stress (Hall, Chipperfield, Perry, Ruthig,

Goetz, 2006). Primary and secondary control techniques were taught to students during an

experiment. Primary control techniques consist of goal directed persistence and effort, secondary

control techniques involve a variety of techniques, including the downgrading of expectations or

task importance, accepting their own limits, or focusing on the good side of bad situations. These

control techniques proved effective in lowering academic stress levels in students, the primary
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control was more effective for male students while the secondary control was more effective in

female students (Hall et al., 2006). Other treatments involve increasing numbers of stress

counselors that are available for students to talk to and those professionals will help the student

by intervening and then assessing the specific problem and getting them into general stress

programs that would help those students cope (Robotham, 2008).

Conclusion

Academic stress is the pressure a student perceives they are under to do well within

schooling (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017, Robotham, 2008). This phenomenon of academic stress is

growing within colleges all over the world. Stressors are the conditions which cause students to

develop stress. Stressors are everywhere in a university, from grades to social situations, to

money all of these can cause stress for students (Hall et al. 2006, Pozos et al. 2014, Robotham,

2008). There is little research showing why these specific stressors cause such an impact on

students and it should be studied closer in order to discover ways of lowering the stress levels in

students. In order to test for academic stress in students researchers use self evaluating

questionnaire that are structured in many different ways in order to measure the stress a student

may be under (Hall et al. 2006, Banu et al. 2015, Kar, 2013). However, because the researchers

only use a self evaluating questionnaire to test academic stress, there is a possibility that these

measurements of stress are not correct and could be much lower or higher than test. Therefore

there is a need for another way of testing this stress that is more reliable than a self evaluating

test. Results from these questionnaires vary, some say women are more stressed others say men

are, there is an obvious issue with getting differing results when the overwhelming majority says

the opposite. The result issue can be fixed through running different questionnaires and other

methods once those come to fruition. Academic stress causes both negative and positive effects,
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negative being increasing mental health issues including, fear, anxiety, guilt, depression, as well

as a lack of exercise, lack of sleep, and an increase in drug and alcohol abuse (Bernstien,

Chemaly, 2017, Robotham, 2008). Positive effects are limited, mostly just an increased ability to

assess and respond quickly in emergencies (Bernstien, Chemaly, 2017). Treatments for academic

stress are limited and should be expanded upon with further research; the treatment at this time is

a combination of coping mechanisms that help students feel more in control with their

surroundings (Hall et al. 2006, Robotham, 2008). Overall there is further research needed into

the measuring of academic stress, the stressors which cause academic stress, and the treatments

for academic stress.

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References

Banu, P., Deb, S., Vardhan, V., & Rao, T. (2015). Perceived academic stress of university

students across gender, academic streams, semesters, and academic performance. Indian

Journal of Health & Wellbeing, 6(3), 231–235. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.sanjuancollege.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc

t=true &db=a9h&AN=102322423&site=ehost-live

Bernstein, C., & Chemaly, C. (2017). Sex Role Identity, Academic Stress and Wellbeing of

First-Year University Students. Gender & Behaviour, 15(1), 8045–8067. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.sanjuancollege.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc

t=true&db=a9h&AN=124471040&site=ehost-live

Hall, N. C., Chipperfield, J. G., Perry, R. P., Ruthig, J. C., & Goetz, T. (2006). Primary and

secondary control in academic development: gender-specific implications for stress and

health in college students1. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 19(2), 189–210.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10615800600581168

Kar, S. (2017). ACADEMIC STRESS AS A DETERMINANT OF ACADEMIC

ACHIEVEMENT. Nurture, 11(1), 1-5. Retrieved from

https://search.proquest.com/docview/2047349668?accountid=39502

Misra, R., & McKean, M. (2000). College Students’ Academic Stress and Its Relation to Their

Anxiety, Time Management, and Leisure Satisfaction. American Journal of Health

Studies, 16(1), 41. Retrieved from

http://ezproxy.sanjuancollege.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc

t=true&db=a9h&AN=3308416&site=ehost-live
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Pozos-Radillo, B. E., de Lourdes Preciado-Serrano, M., Acosta-Fernández, M., de los Ángeles

Aguilera-Velasco, M., & Delgado-García, D. D. (2014). Academic stress as a predictor of

chronic stress in university students. Psicologia Educativa, 20(1), 47–52.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pse.2014.05.006

Robotham, D. (2008). Stress among higher education students: towards a research

agenda. Higher Education (00181560), 56(6), 735–746. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-

008-9137-1